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Long weekend, this was.
Had a lengthy drive in a rainstorm, and was thinking how hard it was to see. Just then I passed an Amish family in an open buggy. O.K. I don't have it so bad.
Walked and swam Saturday, lifted weights and swam Sunday. It's been one year since I started the weights. I started out lifting 24 pounds with my arms, and 48 with my legs. Now I'm up to 60 and 72. So I suppose some progress has been made. :)
I was reading this morning in Gen. 34 - it's where Jacob's daughter Dinah is raped by Shechem ... who proceeds to come and ask Jacob for her hand in marriage. (I'm thinking, this man was NOT overly bright.)
The story ends, predictably, with a slaughter.
Schechem's words to Jacob in verse 11 struck me: "And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give."
This is exactly the position every sinner stands in, when they come to God.
Our sins are just as vile in God's eyes as rape is in ours.
We stand there, having grossly offended ... and we ask for grace.
and He gives it.
Imagine that! We are forgiven by the Father, and accepted as one of the brethren into His church. It's amazing, really.
Just another reminder that "being a good person" isn't the answer. There aren't any good people. It's all His grace, and our acknowledging our need of it. There's no other way available to us.
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I used to be perplexed at what to say to those whose answer is, "I'm basically a good person" whenever I'd try and find a crack somewhere to tell them about Jesus and about heaven.
Then Father just cast the vision for me one day as to what it's like whenever we base our "goodness as a person" as our justification and means by which we should be able to just waltz on into heave heaven and take over the place or something: See, the Bible says that heaven is God's throne; the earth is His footstool. So, where a person's seat is tends to be his home, right? And who tends to live with you in your home? Your family, people you covenant with, right?
So, let's say I come knocking on your door out of the blue. You don't know me from Adam. You open the door for me and say, "Yes?" And I say, 'Hi. I'll be moving my stuff in shortly. I'm coming to live with you because I'm basically a good person.'
You stand there, stunned, just looking at me thinking, "What's this girl been smoking???" If you're really prone to giving grace to people, you won't call the guys with the straightjackets to come haul me off. You'll just shoo me off your property as quickly as you can and say and do everything you can to discourage me from coming back. A lot of people don't have that kind of grace. A lot of people in that situation would just call the cops.
So it seems that's about how that line of reasoning stands with Father.
Thus says the Lord, "The heaven is My throne, and the earth is my footstool; where is the house that you build to me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things have My hand made, and all those things have been," says the LORD; "but to this man will I look, even to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at My Word." Isaiah 66:1,2
Something else just occurred to me that's never really occurred to me before. God is everlasting. His word is everlasting. Nothing can corrupt Him, and nothing can corrupt His Word. Nothing can steal who He is or His place as the God above all gods.
What just occurred to me was this: if it can be stolen, interefered with, or corrupted by the devil or man, then it causes me to wonder...If it can be tampered with my any means, is it truly the real end or just a means to the ultimate end, the expected end, that God thought out for us according to Jeremiah 29:11?
Hmmm....
Lots to think about there...
And we certainly have lots of precidence for what we can conclude about it in the story of Joseph.
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